Generally speaking, if people are prepared to stick their heads above the power pit, like Zinn says, and absorb what's going on around them, it makes them think.

My mother tried to abort me herself with a coathanger, hence my wobbly eye.

I wear my pants on my upper torso to be abstract and different.

Your fantasies are unlikely. But beautiful.

If I could be any animal I would be a pony because then I could have sex with ponies.

And the moral of the story is I'm Thom Yorke.

Obviously, the duty of artists is there, but it's more an indictment of the political system that someone like Zinn views artists as the seers, idealizing them as the people responsible for inspiring change.